Trotting Under the Tuscan Sun

The lavish and warm glow of the sun reflected off of the burnt red, olive green, and golden yellow leaves of the rolling hills. The grape vines, sprawling and climbing in even rows, are slowly withering in the cooling weather and the fields are being turned to rejuvenate the soil. A meandering path, twists in front of me. Made of gravel, the road is spotted with holes from heavy hove traffic. The land is open before me, stretching in a panorama that makes you feel a part of one of Bob Ross’ acrylic paintings – small and insignificant on the horizon yet with the all world before you with endless dirt paths in front of you to explore. It is autumn in Italy and I am trotting Under the Tuscan Sun.

On Saturday, October 25, 2008, though I wasn’t fixing up an old house in the Tuscan country side, I was horse back riding under that same Tuscan sun and in the same Tuscan hills, thinking about how perfectly Frances Mayes described an olive tree’s ability to just be, no matter who was there to tend for it. A trait, I related, that I would hope to see in myself one day.

“The olive tree does impart a sense of peace. It must be, simply, the way they participate in time. These trees are here and will be. They were here. Whether we are or someone else is or no one, each morning they’ll be twirling their leaves and inching up toward the sun.” ~ Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun page 69.



Having never ridden a horse, I woke up this morning nervous yet filled with excitement. My palms were cold and clammy as I pulled on my five day old jeans and plaid Ked tennis shoes that have slowly worn a hole in heel. I assumed there was a possibility of getting dirty riding horses, gathered from the many western movies that I watched with my dad growing up, so I didn’t want to wear my good clothing. I also dawned my hat to cover my tangled hair from the long night in my eight person hostel room and grabbed my pack and rain coat for the day’s adventure as I headed out the door.

After a continental breakfast, I met up with my friend Stephanie who was staying at the same hostel and we were off for our Horseback Riding Wine Tour of Tuscany (according to the brochure), yet neither of us knew really what to expect.

Outside of the McDonalds across the street from the train station, we met our tour guide for the day – a 24 year old Italian student living in Florence named Daniele Rettino. He was dressed in a nice black, ribbed sweater, baggy blue jeans that were faded in the center, a slate grey baseball hat, and dark aviator sun glasses that made it impossible to see his eyes.

Anxiously we shook his hand and he offered us a seat in the gray van marked L’equipe Agrifoglio, the name of the horse club we booked the excursion through. Making small talk as we waited for our fellow horseback riders to show up, he asked us if we had ever been horseback riding before. Stephanie and I looked at each other and laughed, replying that neither of us had ever been before, even though Stephanie is from Texas and you would assume she would be a professional cowboy by now.

Jokingly he told us not to worry – they had ponies we could ride!

The forty minute van ride to the ranch flew by quickly like the Tuscan landscape outside of the van window.

By the time we arrive, luckily, the sun had come out, enveloping the country side in light and making the lonely, last flowers of fall and the magnificent red, orange, yellow, and green hues of the hills brilliantly pop out of the landscape in every direction.

The ranch at first glace was not what I expected. It was more rustic with small individual wooden structures for the ponies and donkeys. It was more charming with grape vines growing up the sides of the deck of the barn and over the pergola, and it was more homey with the employees laughing and joking in Italian with each other while gathering the horses and playing with the small dogs and cats that roamed freely across the ranch grounds.

Before I knew it I was up on a horse. A beautiful horse of chestnut brown with a long coffee brown tail and mane and white feet named Giada. Of course in my ignorance through the whole trail ride I assumed that my horse was a female, referring to Giada as a she, yet I was bluntly corrected by the owner of L’equipe Aglifoglio who let me know Giada was actually a he, point to his male anatomy – making me blush.

After the quickest riding lesson I could have ever imaged in broken English:

To turn left, pull to the left. To turn right, pull to the right. To stop, pull the reigns back. Keep your heels down ALWAYS and give it a kick to start.

We were on our way.

To start we follow along a hand built wooden face that separated the pasture and the stables before turning off the path toward the open vineyards and olive groves of the neighbors’ farms.

As the tour continued, we wondered through hills and fields, precisely laid lines of grapes and olives, and small villas and farm houses nestled in between where the hills converged.

Riding along I quickly became accustom to the movements and tendencies of my horse – his long strides, focused path, and need to be forth in the line of six horses, refusing to pass the large black horse that paced third, named Gustave. Why he could not pass Gustave I do not know, but I didn’t mind as long as Giada seemed happy, calm and corporative.

On what I assumed to be a peaceful and quiet horseback ride (which it was some of the time) the tour was also marked with yells from the riding guide, a Italian women in her middle thirties and an accomplished rider of 15 years, to Maria, a fellow beginner, who was riding in the rear of the line.

She would yell, MMMAAAAAAARRRRRRRIIIIIIAAAAAAAA, Maria! Velocemente…velocemente…scossa…scossa…scossa…Maria!

Roughly translating to faster, faster, kick, kick, kick she would yell to Maria who was lagging behind the group by a couple hundred yards.

Though I found this ferocious bickering back and forth I was not able to escape the wrath of our riding guide. While we were riding all of sudden the path sprawled open into a golden field where the grasses seemed to carry on forever. The wind was blowing through the tall grass and the sun was shining through a patch of scatted clouds, making the scene literally picture perfect. Pulling out my camera to capture the image digitally, I hit a bump in the rough dirt road causing my camera to slide out of my hands a crash hard into the ground. Looking around not knowing what to do to get my camera, I road past it and turned around on my horse just in time to see my camera almost get smashed to smithereens by the horse behind me.

The Italian rider behind me seeing my confusion and poor scratched camera on the ground called up to the front and gathered the attention of our riding guide. Dismounting and marching over to my camera looking obviously angry for having to yet stop again, she handed back my camera saying nothing; yet the stern, don’t do that again, look glared through her eyes, and we returned to the trail in front of us.


The remainder of the ride was smooth sailing if you can use a boating analogy for trying to convince a horse to go down a rocky hill and ride past barking dogs. I continued to take photos and a consistent bellowing of Maria could be heard echoing through the Tuscan hills surrounding us, so maybe I should describe it more as, as smooth as the pot holed, rocky dirt path that we trotted along – stressed from hard work, exhilaratingly bumpy, straddled by the most vibrant land and heated by the Tuscan sun!

Two hours after our departure on the horses we returned to the ranch. I was sad for the riding to be over yet happy to get some blood flow back into my feet which were tingling like pins and needles. After dismounting and almost collapsing to the ground from having to use my legs to stand again, I said goodbye to the beloved Giada and the group said goodbye to the first half of our adventure and hello to an authentic Tuscan meal and Chianti wine tasting to end our rumbling stomachs.

Tuscan Food and Wine

Antipasta:

Salami and prosciutto with sheep cheese and bread

Primo:

Tri-pasta platter including cheese ravioli in a white truffle sauce, hand rolled spaghetti noodles with meat sauce and flat egg noble pasta with fungi garnished with a slice of lemon.

Dessert:

Biscotti di Prato, a dry almond biscuit that you dip in the dessert wine
Chocolate fruit cake sprinkled with powdered sugar


Wine Tasting:
2008 regional white
2007 100% Chianti red wine
2005 Aristocratic Chianti red wine
1996 Santo dessert wine



(Posted from my travelog assignment in Cultural Communications)